Campfires

Park rangers at five L.A.-area parks invite you to come roast a few marshmallows around the campfire and learn about the more natural side of the urban core you live in. Ranger events create an outdoors-in-the-city experience good for children and families -- and they're free. The deal: The evening campfires are sponsored by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, which works to help create open space, trails and habitats in Los Angeles and beyond. The campfires feature ranger talks, sing-alongs and of course marshmallow roasting (if you want s'mores, bring your own graham crackers and chocolate)

The late American composer Peter Lieberson imagined he was creating a campfire opera, a Tibetan Buddhist legend told by a narrator, who recites, scats and sings, backed by a small instrumental ensemble in front of an audience happily eating and drinking. It was no campfire when premiered in Munich and repeated at Tanglewood two decades ago, not with cellist Yo-Yo Ma and pianists Peter Serkin and Emanuel Ax in the glamorous lineup. These days, officials don't, of course, cotton to campfires on the beach, but Long Beach Opera has found a grassy knoll next to the Queen Mary, water and the Long Beach skyline in the background where at least an ersatz fire can be part of the stage.

Struggling to protect Yosemite National Park's natural beauty from the throngs who come to enjoy it, the National Park Service began a clampdown Saturday on campfires to reduce air pollution in famed Yosemite Valley. The limitations on the time-honored tradition are the latest in a string of measures the Park Service is considering or has put into effect to restrict use for the sake of preserving Yosemite's renowned natural features.

The Rim fire near Yosemite was started by a hunter who lost control of his campfire, investigators from the U.S. Forest Service and the Tuolumne County district attorney's office said Thursday. The blaze, which erupted in the Stanislaus National Forest north of the Tuolumne River on Aug. 17, has burned 370 square miles of national forest and parkland and destroyed 111 buildings, including 11 homes and three businesses. The cost of fighting the fire reached $81 million Thursday. “It was intended as a campfire, then for whatever reason, if it was put out improperly or left unattended … it got out of control,” said Forest Service spokesman Ray Mooney.

When Karin Hauenstein led her three horses down Vine Street, the girls in short skirts stilled their stiletto-heeled sashays, the incense hawkers stopped calling out to passersby, and Trader Joe's shoppers gaped through the glass at the convoy clip-clopping up the far right lane. Whether anyone registered more than surprise is hard to say. But on that recent afternoon, Hauenstein was making a statement. The 39-year-old horse trainer has come south from Santa Barbara County to protest the commercial slaughter of horses.

Restrictions on campfires and smoking will go into effect in the Angeles National Forest on Monday because of rising temperatures and the increased danger of fire, the forest supervisor said Friday. George A. Roby said at the forest's Arcadia headquarters that campfires will be restricted to developed, drive-in campgrounds. Although fire permits are not required in those areas, he said, fires must be in the stoves or barbecue facilities provided there. Portable stoves may be used outside the campgrounds, but only with permits.

It is unfortunate that the Los Angeles Times and apparently a handful of others still cling to the idea that if something is banned, no one will obtain it or use it. In your editorial "A Ban Against Fireworks Should Be Countywide" (July 2), you continue to wring out the same tired reasons you feel a ban on all fireworks is necessary. Actually, most states allow their residents to legally purchase and use some type of fireworks for the Fourth of July. Eight allow all types of class C fireworks, including firecrackers, skyrockets and star shells.

It's been 73 years since Glen and Bessie Hyde vanished on a honeymoon voyage through the Grand Canyon, but what exactly happened to them is still a mystery. On the Colorado River on summer nights, passengers on commercial rafting trips stand around campfires while boatmen speculate about the young Idaho bean farmer and his bride. They say Bessie wanted to be the first woman to boat through the Grand Canyon. She almost made it.

Nuts, dried fruits and jerky make great camp snacks, but after a day of hiking, you want a good, hot meal. Hobo packs--foil-wrapped meals cooked in the ashes of a campfire or on a grill--are a Scouting tradition. A standard hobo pack is carrots, onions, hamburger and lots of catsup wrapped in foil. But in his recent book, "License to Grill" (Morrow, 1997), Chris Schlesinger--one-time member of the Longhorn Patrol of Boy Scout Troop 103--came up with a group of hobo packs that go beyond burgers.

This Fourth of July marks one of 5he driest winters in recent memory. The 1987 fire season has already been underscored by the $18-million Pebble Beach brush fire caused by an illegal campfire. Here in the Southland, the brush is already crispy dry. Yet, during my daily morning run, I have had to extinguish more and more smoldering campfires left along hiking trails. They are usually surrounded by lots of beer cans and broken bottles. If you're thinking about getting whacked out around a campfire in one of our canyons, you'd better think again.

The Rim fire near Yosemite was started by a hunter who lost control of his campfire, investigators from the U.S. Forest Service and the Tuolumne County district attorney's office said Thursday. The blaze, which erupted in the Stanislaus National Forest north of the Tuolumne River on Aug. 17, has burned 370 square miles of national forest and parkland and destroyed 111 buildings, including 11 homes and three businesses. The cost of fighting the fire reached $81 million Thursday. "It was intended as a campfire, then for whatever reason, if it was put out improperly or left unattended … it got out of control," said Forest Service spokesman Ray Mooney.

Park rangers at five L.A.-area parks invite you to come roast a few marshmallows around the campfire and learn about the more natural side of the urban core you live in. Ranger events create an outdoors-in-the-city experience good for children and families -- and they're free. The deal: The evening campfires are sponsored by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, which works to help create open space, trails and habitats in Los Angeles and beyond. The campfires feature ranger talks, sing-alongs and of course marshmallow roasting (if you want s'mores, bring your own graham crackers and chocolate)

An unattended campfire in Mariposa County sparked a blaze that has burned about 1,600 acres, authorities concluded Tuesday. The Carstens fire broke out Sunday afternoon east of California 140 in the Midpines area, about 40 miles southwest of Yosemite National Park. Investigators will try to track down who was responsible for the campfire, said Cal Fire spokesman Daniel Berlant. About 800 homes remained threatened by the wildfire, which has closed the primary road leading to Yosemite and drawn more than 2,200 firefighters to fight it. It is 15% contained.

One of the things that makes beer different from wine - apart from the fact that people don't wear funny hats to a wine tasting - is the range of flavorings that can be added to it: fruit, nuts, spices, coffee, chocolate; the list goes on. To make this beer, High Water Brewing throws 100 pounds of graham crackers into the brewing kettle. Yes, graham crackers, which may sound a bit gimmicky but, in fact, are quite successful. This is a stout, so expect caramel and molasses flavors, and like a lot of present-day stouts, its mash includes chocolate malt, so there's a trace of that.

When Karin Hauenstein led her three horses down Vine Street, the girls in short skirts stilled their stiletto-heeled sashays, the incense hawkers stopped calling out to passersby, and Trader Joe's shoppers gaped through the glass at the convoy clip-clopping up the far right lane. Whether anyone registered more than surprise is hard to say. But on that recent afternoon, Hauenstein was making a statement. The 39-year-old horse trainer has come south from Santa Barbara County to protest the commercial slaughter of horses.

Just because you are camping doesn't mean you have to do without classy cooking tools. The Alpine Deluxe Kitchen Kit, from MSR , includes a folding spatula, spoon and pot strainer-cheese grater, a sheathed, high-carbon stainless steel knife, a folding cutting board, a nonstick-pan-friendly pot scraper, moisture-resistant salt and pepper shakers, a bottle opener-corkscrew, two squeeze bottles for condiments and a highly absorbent, quick-drying towel....

A 10,500-acre forest fire burning west of Lake Tahoe prompted the Tahoe National Forest to ban campfires at all 87 of its developed campgrounds Friday. The ban on campfires and barbecues is the first in seven years in the forest, which stretches over 1.2 million acres from the edge of the Tahoe Basin up to Sierra City and down to Foresthill.

For Ken Graydon, repairing cars was a living. But writing poetry and song lyrics and tall tales to be told and sung around a campfire was his passion. For anyone who thinks of poets as smallish, shy, intellectual fellows who look inward, Graydon was a shocker. He stood 6 feet 4 and, in his prime, weighed 220 pounds. His idea of a fine time was mixing with friends from the disparate worlds of poetry and classic cars, and swapping songs and stories long into the night. His voice was a strong baritone, and he was generous with praise for other versifiers.

For Neal Taylor, fishing wasn't limited to weekends or, for that matter, water. On one of Santa Barbara's busiest streets, the seven-time national casting champion showed a friend just how it's done, lofting his line into an intersection when the light turned red and yanking it back when traffic resumed. "I thought, this guy is really funny," said Bob Nunez, a dentist and one of Taylor's closest fishing buddies. "I thought, I love this guy. " Taylor died Tuesday at his Santa Barbara home.